Everything had gone back to normal very quickly, Eloise reflected as she organized last year’s tax papers and stacked them neatly in the filing cabinet. Being at work seemed to help. Sitting here, surrounded by taupe walls and the sound of the water cooler, with ink stains on her fingers from handling too many printouts, it was hard to visualize herself as the princess who had danced with Masoud.

She’d tried. Over the weekend, which had been long thanks to their arrival home on Friday afternoon, she’d put on the dress Masoud had given her and danced her way around her apartment. But it no longer felt real. She felt like a little girl playing dress-up.

That’s all I ever was, Eloise thought to herself now. A girl playing dress-up.

She hadn’t been a princess. She probably hadn’t mattered much to Masoud. She had been caught up in the moment, but who was she kidding? He could have any girl he wanted. He probably did that with a different girl every week.

Now, the blue dress was packed away in a bag at the back of her closet, and the earrings were folded in a piece of fabric at the bottom of her jewelry box. Today was Monday, and Eloise had to admit that it was nice to be back at work, to be distracted by her usual routine.

She closed the filing cabinet and padded over to the staff kitchen, leaving her uncomfortable heels under her desk. It was always a risk, crossing the office barefoot—Patrick wouldn’t like it—and Eloise got a tiny thrill of rebellion each time she did it. She poured herself a mug of coffee and returned to her desk to go through the messages Patrick had missed while they were away.

As usual, there were a good half-dozen from his mother. She lived in a retirement community in Florida, and Patrick almost never returned her calls. Eloise condensed these messages down to a single line—CALL YOUR MOTHER—and deleted them.

There were also several messages from business partners and clients. Eloise took down all the details carefully and highlighted in green the ones that would require a follow-up call. She made her own list of appointments she would need to schedule, making sure to include details such as where the person liked to eat lunch.

And then, at the end of the messages, she heard a voice she recognized.

“This is Masoud Khan of Khan Capital, following up with Patrick Gainsborough,” he said. “I would love to arrange a time to discuss potential ways our companies can work together for mutual benefit. Mr. Gainsborough is familiar with my expectations, and I invite him to reach out if he’d like to move forward.”

And he left a number.

Eloise was shell-shocked.

She played the message again, this time scribbling down the details as she went, feeling numb. Had he known she would be the one to hear this message? He knew she was Patrick’s personal assistant. He must have known there was a chance she’d be taking his calls.

And so what? she thought.

They’d agreed to keep their business lives and their personal affair separate. Why shouldn’t Masoud call Patrick’s assistant and leave an impersonal message? He was behaving perfectly appropriately. She was the one who was out of line, letting her feelings get in the way of doing her job. No, the only appropriate way to handle this was to treat this message just like she would any other.

So, she stood and walked to Patrick’s door. “I have your messages.”

Patrick reached out a hand without looking away from his computer. She crossed the floor of the office and placed the slip of paper in his open palm.

He glanced at it. “Send my mother some flowers, would you?”

“I think she really just wants to talk to you.”

“I didn’t ask you what you thought.”

“Okay.”

“Why is Carpenter still calling me? I thought we dumped him.”

“He dumped us. I thought you should take the meeting because maybe we could win back his business.”

“I don’t want to look at that smug face while I’m eating.”

“So don’t look at him. But his money’s good.”

Patrick sighed. “See if you can get a lunch reservation at Berto’s, then. If I’m going to eat with this guy, I at least want a good steak.”

“I’ll make the arrangements.”

Patrick looked back at the paper. “Masoud Khan? What the hell does he want?”

She felt a jolt at the sound of his name and struggled to maintain her composure.

“To do business with us.” Eloise said. “Which is something we should take seriously.”

“He’s not serious. You can’t tell a business associate how to manage their personal life. That’s a child’s idea of business.”

“Sir,” Eloise said, “I don’t want to get into the details of our personal lives here. It’s none of my business. But…come on. I know how much this company means to you, and the Khan Capital deal could take MAFA to the next level. We’re lucky he’s still open to negotiating. The last meeting didn’t go well. A lot of people would have never called us again.”

“He shouldn’t spring things like that on people if he wants meetings to go well.”

“That’s probably true,” Eloise allowed.

“I’ll meet him again,” Patrick said. “But this time, we meet here.”

“You realize he probably can’t do that.”

“What? Why not?”

“He’s a member of the royal family,” Eloise said. “I’m sure it’s a big deal for him to travel internationally. There are probably all kinds of security requirements that have to be met. It would be much easier for us to go there.”

Patrick groaned. “Fine. But he’s paying.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

She was nervous dialing the number, but she never spoke to Masoud. She should have expected that. Of course he had assistants to schedule things for him. Eloise made the arrangements with a friendly-sounding young woman. When she explained that Patrick didn’t want to pay for a second round of travel expenses, the woman laughed and reassured her that of course Khan Capital would cover their travel and lodging. In a matter of minutes, the arrangements were made.

So, she would be going back to Al-Zhera. The trip, scheduled for six weeks from now, seemed both a lifetime away and impossibly close.

Eloise went home that very night and started packing. She would bring sundresses this time, in addition to her stuffy business suits. They would be perfect in the dry heat and the wind. And her nicest undergarments, not just the functional cotton ones she’d had last time; if things went well and she and Masoud were able to sneak off for a second time, she wanted to be prepared.

Of course, who knew if he’d even want her? Who knew how he’d react to seeing her again? Maybe it would be hopelessly awkward and they’d spend the whole time avoiding looking at each other. If it was like that, and she was wearing a pretty sundress, wouldn’t he know she’d dressed for him? How embarrassing would that be?

Oh, this was fraught.

She was still thinking about it the next day when Patrick called her into his office. To her surprise, a copy of the “code of conduct” the morality clause referred to was sitting in the center of his desk. He’d clearly been going over its requirements.

She indicated the document. “Are you thinking of signing?”

“This thing? Hell no.” Patrick shook his head. “Have you read this thing?”

“I haven’t.” Masoud hadn’t asked her to sign it. Briefly, she wondered if affairs with foreign royalty were precluded by the contract.

“Nobody lives like this,” Patrick said. “It’s insane.”

Eloise picked it up and skimmed some of the highlighted portions. It didn’t seem insane. No public drinking to excess and no public criticism of others were certainly conservative ideas, especially for someone like Patrick, but she saw nothing wrong with them.

“Okay,” she said neutrally, not wanting an argument.

“He must be breaking at least half of these rules himself,” Patrick said.

Eloise didn’t think so. Based on her day with Masoud, she would have been willing to bet that this document reflected the way he lived his life. Of course, it was possible he’d been misleading her during the time they’d spent together. Anything was possible.

Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed so hard for this return trip to Al-Zhera. It was making her doubt everything!

“Listen up,” Patrick said. “I have a special project for you.”

“For the meeting?”

“Yep.”

She’d expected this. “You want me to rework the presentation, right? I think I can make it tighter.”

“What? No. The presentation is fine.”

“Then what?”

Patrick waved a hand at the document.

“I want you to dig up whatever you can on this guy. I know he’s a public figure, and I know you love research. Find out every way he’s ever broken the terms of this clause. I want proof. Pictures. Sources.”

“You want me to prove he’s not living up to his own standard of morality?”

Patrick pointed a finger at her. “Exactly. If we can catch him in the act, he’ll have to take this stupid clause out of the contract, and then we can close the deal and get on with our lives.”

“That can’t possibly be legal.”

“Why not? I’m not asking you to go through his garbage, here. I’m asking you to dig into information that’s publicly available. I know you found out all kinds of stuff about him before we went over there, so just go a little deeper. Find out if he smoked pot as a teenager, or if he ever screwed over a girlfriend. Even an unpaid parking ticket would do. Just something I can paint him with.”

“Okay, well, even if it is legal, it’s totally unethical,” Eloise said.

“And telling me how to live my life is ethical?” Patrick snapped. “I’m a grown man. I’m a CEO, for God’s sake. And this buffoon has the audacity to march in and try to tell me right from wrong? What makes his way of life so much better than anyone else’s?”

Eloise wasn’t even going to try to address that.

“So, if I find something, you’ll what, confront him with it? Tell him you’re not going to sign the clause and he still has to do business with you? He’s not going to want to get involved with us if we do this.”

“He will,” Patrick said. “If he doesn’t, we’ll go public with the reason the deal didn’t close.’

“So you’re going to threaten him.”

“Call it what you want.”

“Patrick, this is crazy,” Eloise said. “This isn’t going to work.”

“Of course it is. Everyone has secrets, Eloise. Everyone is hiding something.”

Was that true? If it was, Eloise realized, she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to taint her memories of her time with Masoud by catching him doing something immoral. Even if there was something questionable in his past, surely everybody made mistakes? And hadn’t Masoud been ready to overlook Patrick’s past if he turned over a new leaf?

“No,” she said.

Patrick raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry?”

“I don’t want to do this.”

“I’m not asking.”

“Well, I’m refusing.”

“You can’t refuse,” he said. “You work for me.”

“Not like this. This is really sketchy. I don’t want to get involved.”

Patrick stood up and leaned over his desk. He was tall, and when he stood over her like this, he was imposing.

“I thought you liked this job, Eloise.”

“What?”

“You’re a good assistant,” he said. “I’d hate to have to get a new one.”

“What are you saying?”

“If I can’t count on you to do the work I need, I’m going to have to find somebody else.” He took the document out of her hands and flipped through it idly. “I don’t want to let you go, Eloise. You do good work. And I know how important this job is to you. You’re helping your parents out, right? I’d hate to think of anything happening to them because you couldn’t fulfill an assignment.”

Eloise felt cold. Would he really fire her? She had been nothing but loyal and hardworking in all the time she’d been in his employ. How could he justify letting her go?

He doesn’t need to justify it. All he cares about is what benefits him.

She wanted to take a stand. She wanted to tell him he could go ahead and fire her if it was like that, and good luck finding another assistant who was half as good as she was. But he was right about one thing—her parents were counting on her. Without Eloise’s income, they’d be evicted in a matter of months. They’d have to find somewhere else to live, and whatever they found wouldn’t be anywhere near as nice as what they had now.

She couldn’t let them down.

“Fine,” she said, snatching the morality clause back, trying not to look at Patrick’s triumphant grin. “I’ll see what I can find.”